


Sky

by Philefic



Category: The X-Files
Genre: The X-Files Revival
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-21
Updated: 2016-01-21
Packaged: 2018-05-15 07:26:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5776831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Philefic/pseuds/Philefic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I wanted to explore William as a character today. Then put him in the context of Mulder and Scully in the revival, amongst a few spoilers we've had.  This isn't what I want to see in the revival, this is my character interpretation of William and what his relationship with Mulder and Scully may look like if they were to be reunited today.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sky

The snow fell like icing sugar and frozen fairies shaking the cold around with the flutter of their tiny wings. It settled and began to block the view of the school field that once had neatly painted lines on lush, green grass but now resembled what William thought his father was describing when he used the phrase “When hell freezes over.” If he closed his eyes he could picture him saying it. Red faced with eyes popping out of their sockets. “You’ll drive that bike again when hell freezes over boy.” He didn’t often make his father that angry but apparently stealing the farm bike to go hunting in the woods with your friend was one of the times that did it. He was thankful for that perfect memory even if it was passed to him from the man he now lived with. 

He shuffled his feet along the long stretch of school hall, shaking some of the remainder snow off his boots. It melted quickly under the wealthy heat his mother’s healthy doctor salary no doubt covered generously. He reached the room number matching the piece of paper he had been handed too by the head mistress and took a cursory glance through the door’s window. The students sat tall at their desks. Their books in uniform order and their neck ties were as straight as the ruler that lay across the top of their desk. He sighed heavily. Why did he need to come to this school anyway? It wasn’t bad enough that he had been moved to that little country school in the first instance? It’s not his fault those country kids were dumber than pigs in shit. This city preppy private school felt like his punishment for being smart and not, as his mother had put it, ‘an opportunity to challenge himself’. Well maybe he didn’t need any new challenges. Maybe losing your parents, your home and then being put with the two people who gave you up when you were a baby was punishment enough. Apparently not the teacher spotted him through the window and gestured for him to enter. He opened the door and didn’t bother to lift his feet or his chin as he entered. All eyes landed heavily on him and the noise inside his head grew loud and cluttered. 

“Class” the teacher addressed the masses. “This is our new student. Can I introduce to you William Mulder.”

“Van der Kamp” William corrected.

The teacher looked over her glasses at her own piece of paper handed to her by the head mistress. “Hmm there must have been an error…..”

“My father’s name is Mulder. My name is Van der Kamp.” He eye balled her confidently to make sure she appreciated how serious he was about that. He could feel her embarrassment in his mind and hear her subconscious say she hadn’t had enough coffee to deal with this so early in the morning.

“Ok William. My name is Ms Turnball, please take a seat.” She gestured to the only free desk in the room.

The swarm of conversation in his head dulled slightly as he made his way over to his seat. Apparently none of his class mates were overly interested in him. He was thankful for that but not particularly for the Algebra worksheet sitting on his desk.

“Ok class resume working on your test sheets.” The teacher sat back behind her own desk. A flurry of pencils scratching along the page began along with the frantic rush of numbers and symbols inside William’s head. He filled in each question methodically and then opened up his note book to work on a piece of writing, it helped him to block them out. Sometimes writing was the only way to have a quiet, single thought inside his head. Of course no-one would ever read these words. The boy who heard the internal monologue of everyone around him kept his own thoughts very private. He didn’t even notice the teacher look over his shoulder until she cleared her throat.

Quickly he tucked the notebook back underneath the math worksheet and flicked a thick lock of brown hair out of his view. “Sorry Mam” He pre-empted her distain.

“You haven’t shown any working William.” Her eyes scanned the page.

“No Mam.” He shuffled pages nervously “I believe you’ll find it’s all correct though.”

Ms Turnball picked up the sheet and scanned the neat numbers along the ruled line. Without the working she couldn’t be completely sure but it seemed he was right, all of his answers were correct.

William pushed out his full bottom lip when he smiled up at her, not yet knowing the effect that would have on woman later in his life. He knew she was flustered and frustrated with him already, having grown used to teachers feeling that way about him. She shoved the page back under his nose. “You need to show your working William.”

“Yes Mam.”

**********

He watched the final seconds tick passed the nine towards the ten. He concentrated on those tiny dots moving achingly slowly behind the longer hand of the clock. He pushed his mind and bent it forward and the hand jumped to the twelve prompting the shrill of the school bell that signalled the end of this torturous day. No one waved or said goodbye, no one patted him on the shoulder or said ‘see you tomorrow’. Even his teacher left the classroom before he did, more thankful than he was that the day was finally over. Her anxieties of the Doctor’s appointment she was going to ran through William like a sudden trill runs up your spin and prickles your skin for no apparent reason. If only he could tell her that he knew she would be fine.

Exiting the school gate alone was nothing new. A group of girls standing off to the side paused in their conversation to size him up as he passed. The mind of a teenage girl was a confusing thing and when they were in a group like these ones were his mind filled with lots of colour and noise like one of those test screens on an old television set. “He’s cute.” One of them muttered to the group under her breath and he was grateful that at least for today that’s how she would think of him. 

His back pack weighed down his shoulders now heavy with new books, a new curriculum to get familiar with and no doubt a harder algebra worksheet tucked into his note book by his new teacher. They spotted each other simultaneously from across the car park. It was still uncomfortable to William how in sync he and this man he couldn’t yet call father were. He dropped his head so that thick fringe fell over his eyes to break his stare and made his way to the car. The lock on the back door popped open when he pulled the handle and he threw his bag without grace into the back seat. He could still feel the girls at his back, now watching both of them as he slammed the back door behind his bag and climbed into the front seat. His father was dressed in the same worn polo and jacket he’d been wearing since they met. It seemed when his mother had left him she took his dress sense along with her. “I thought Dana was picking me up.”

“Aaah she had to go to surgery.” His father stuttered.

William sulked punishing Mulder with the exact expression he had used to torture Scully with their entire relationship.

“Are we going back to the farm?”

Mulder turned the engine in the car and began to pull out into the road. “No I’ll take you back to the apartment. I thought I’d order dinner for us? There’s that new Pizza place open just one block over from Dana’s”

“She doesn’t like Pizza.” He said flatly starring out at the empty street ahead.

“Since when?” Mulder turned his concentration between the road and his son. Scully not liking pizza! He’d have to open an X-File. 

“She’s on some health kick thing.” His sentence floated away unfinished. He pulled out his note book and began writing again. 

Mulder looked at the page without seeing the words and then back at the road ahead. “Hey there’s a game on.” He nudged William’s knee with his hand. William looked at the place he’d knocked as if that tiny tap had wounded him. “We could watch it together. I’ll stop and get some sodas and chips?”

“I have homework.”

Mulder paused, knowing that his son was scanning his mood telepathically. “Ok I’ll tell you what, you do your homework and I’ll watch the game and then I’ll cook. Your mother loves my cooking.” He was trying to be funny but William wasn’t willing to budge from that pout.

“Hmm I don’t remember the last time we made it through a whole dinner together.” Unfortunately for Mulder William had inherited his mother’s gift of sarcasm.

Mulder wasn’t interested in defending his co-parenting with his 15 year old son, especially since he’d only officially been parenting him for a year. “I’ll just get the Pizza then eh? You can have a night off mom’s fancy healthy diet.”

“Whatever.”

*************

It hadn’t snowed in a few days so the grounds around the school yard were trying their best to rejuvenate inside the warmth of the sunshine before the next onslaught of cold took them out again. William made his away across the field trying to avoid being seen by any of his fellow classmates who were taking advantage of having the grounds open to kick a ball on again. Over to the side was the grandstand that would one day be full with dedicated sports fans but for now provided him with a quiet place to escape the constant noise inside his mind. There was a spot tucked right over in the corner, right up against adjacent fences that bordered the boundary of another school. The grass had died away and there was enough sun light shining through the small gaps in the fence to provide him with light to see his pages. He hunkered down onto the dry ground, pulling his jacket under his bottom for cushioning and tightening his scarf and beanie for warmth. Inside his bag was an organically grown, pesticide free apple that his mother had thrown in this morning as she did every morning. If only he could tell her pesticides were the least of her worries as a human being living and breathing on this god forsaken planet, if God were around to forsake it that is.

The bell signalling the end of the lunch break shrilled through the school ground and went unnoticed by William. Science was his last class today and he was uninterested in dissecting that poor frog. He instinctively knew that one day he would be dissected for science or that he had been in one way or another as a child and therefore felt on some personal level too close to that frog to open him up from jaw to tail. Instead he plugged his ears with the phones of his ipod and hit play. So what if they called his mother again, she always knew where he was anyway. His bond to her meant she had some kind of internal beacon that sounded inside her if he was in any kind of danger. That is, after all, how they found him in the first place.

When she sat against the fence on the opposite side of him he felt her before he heard her. Inside his head swirls of pinks, yellows and blues circled and hummed like bees in spring. He could smell pollen and rain mixing inside the colours, it filled him and lightened him all at the same time until the harsh aroma of cigarette smoke diluted it and brought him back to solid ground.

“You stole my spot.” An angelic voice came through the hole in the fence.

William played possum, thinking that perhaps if he stayed very still she wouldn’t try to engage him in any way. Talking to the female of the species was not one of his strong attributes. He was interested in them of course, as most 15 year old boys are but being able to delve inside their heads was definitely a huge disadvantage. Teenage girls were extremely complicated creatures. If he had to, he would say their minds were best described as chaos. Extreme highs, extreme lows and a whole lot of sharp angles in between. Girls were interested in him too of course, many had tried to draw his attention in one way or another over the last few years but knowing exactly what someone thinks about you doesn’t provide a whole lot of confidence when initiating conversation for the first time. 

This girl couldn’t see him, she couldn’t tell if he was captain of the football team or president of the chess club. Heck he was a girl for all she knew at this very moment.

“Want a cigarette?” Her voice was casual, like she could be conversing with a yeti for all she cared. A cigarette slipped through one of the cracks in the fence, lit and ready to be dragged on. He stared long and hard at the tiny embers burn the paper down slowly. He wasn’t a fan of cigarettes, the smell triggered something in him like one of those memories your subconscious stored as sounds, smells and feelings. Plus his mother was like some kind of big time Doctor, surgeon, chief or something. She would highly disapprove of him sucking on that thing and it was that very thought that tempted him to take it between his finger and thumb and place it between his lips.

He dragged the noxious chemicals deep into his lungs mimicking the way he saw some guy do it in a movie once and his lungs rejected it instantly. He coughed and spluttered and gagged. The more he tried to play it cool, the worse his body protested. It took him a few minutes to recover, especially because he was taller than your average middleschooler and the ventilation wasn’t so great inside this cascade of chairs. He knew he was going to live when he heard the laughter coming through the fence. 

“Woah man, you ok over there. You’re not supposed to inhale it like that.” She managed through the giggling.

“Shit!” William got out, stubbing the nasty smoke into the ground with the toe of his shoe.

“He speaks.”

“That was disgusting.” He spat at it on the ground to try and remove the vial taste from his mouth.

“Sorry man. I just assumed you were here to smoke.” The voice behind the fence began to giggle again behind her hand. 

William sat back down against the fence and sulked. He liked this spot and he wasn’t going to let this girl ruin it for him. Even if her mind was telling him she was a great person. No he was going to sit here and write and ignore her from now on. She’ll lose interest eventually and leave. There was silence for a short while but he knew she still sat there wondering about him too.

“So if you aren’t here to smoke, why are you here?”

There was a distinct lack of cigarette smoke when she spoke this time. She obviously had put the vial things away. He still wasn’t interested in talking to her.

“Are you ignoring me now?”

She was pretty hard to ignore. The strangest thing about Williams mind is he could see a person without physically seeing them. It seemed he was the only person on the planet who could scientifically credit the notion that true beauty lived on the inside. This mysterious girl behind the fence, who at this point was merely a voice and cloud of smoke was to date the most interestingly beautiful person he had ever been in the presence of. That didn’t mean he was going to talk to her though. If for no other reason than he was feeling extremely embarrassed about the whole smoking thing. 

“Fine, I’m psychic you know. If you won’t talk to me then place your hand up to the fence and I’ll be able to read your thoughts.”

He looked at the fence instinctively knowing that he was looking at the spot where her hand pressed on the other side. Of course she wasn’t actually psychic. I f people only knew what that really meant they wouldn’t be so quick to claim the ability. 

He paused to consider. He knew what would happen if he placed his hand to hers. He knew that she didn’t and that always presented him with an ethical dilemma. If people knew that he could see into their thoughts and know their feelings when they met him wouldn’t they then choose to walk on by? Perhaps that is why he never allowed himself to get to close to people. Resigned to the fact that he may never see her again or talk with her, he slowly and carefully lay his hand to the fence alongside hers. The colours are the first things that get brighter, beautiful green and yellow indicating she held things important to her directly inside her heart and soul. She was creative, he could tell by the wide variety of shades she projected. He saw images of a happy child who grew into herself when her parents’ marriage began to fall apart and then completely when her father left her for good. 

He pulled his hand quickly away as if the wood had caught fire and scalded his palm. People like to romanticise that souls are linked, a romance novel would call it soul mates. William didn’t dare call it that but he did see connections in people. Like their life forces were mingled eternally and when they meet a kind of ephemeral link is made permanently. He didn’t understand, question it or even dear to wonder why he knew this but even as a baby he felt the link his adoptive parents had to each other. Perhaps that’s how he always knew he wasn’t there’s his life forces never reached out to mingle with theirs. Maybe if he had taken the time to think about that he would have been able to see the end they were fated to have with him in their presence. He saw it in his birth parents, theirs was the strongest bond he had ever seen before and perhaps that’s because he felt attached to it in some way. Of course they were too stubborn to see it, too pig headed to acknowledge it.

He was linked to this girl, her beautiful life energy was connected to his somehow and instinctively he knew he’d found someone he could trust. Perhaps the only one in this world given his parents were too involved with themselves to worry about him. His heart thumped in his ears as he stared down at his and as if it would offer him some kind of explanation. Then he realised she was still talking and he hadn’t been listening at all.

“You’re a writer.” She said like it was the end of a range of things she had just rattled off.

“How did you know that?” He looked confused

“I told you I’m psychic.” She said matter of factly.

He looked down at the note paper and pencil he’d dropped on the ground that she could obviously see through the gap under the fence.

“So now you are talking to me are you going to tell me your name?” 

He smiled at the genuine nature in her voice. She honestly felt guilty for the silly cigarette thing and he felt bad about that. After all it was his fault, he didn’t have to take it. “I thought you said you were psychic?” He teased.

“I am.”

“Then tell me my name.”

He heard her breath in deeply. He almost felt air drift through his lungs at the same rate it did in hers. The connection between them was growing with every new interaction. He felt her close her eyes and concentrate as if she was actually trying to channel his thoughts and figure out his name. Closing his eyes too, he pushed the word through his head, trying to project it out to her. It had worked before. If he concentrated hard enough he could project a word and it would be picked up by someone around him. It didn’t work very often though, he tended to keep his thoughts to himself. 

“William” She breathed out.

He smiled knowingly. “Wow.” He tried to sound amazed. “You really are psychic.”

“Woah!” She tried to hide her complete shock that she got it correct but recovers quickly “I told you I was psychic.”

“I’m impressed.”

“So William if you aren’t here to smoke? Why are you here?” 

“To write.” He picked up his lost pencil and pad as if she could see it.

“Of course.”

He heard her shuffle around and knew she was contemplating whether or not she should flee or stay and carry on this conversation with him. She was drawn to him too, she just didn’t know why like he did. To her it was a strange feeling. To him it was like a lifetime of thoughts and dreams and feelings swirling inside the pit of his stomach. He wasn’t ready for her to leave yet. “You didn’t tell me your name.”

“Oh it’s Sky.”

He knew that wasn’t her real name but adored the fact that that’s what she called herself. “Nice to meet you Sky.”

“Nice to meet you too William the writer.”

***********

William sat sprawled out on his king sized single bed. He often found it ironic that his tiny mother, who sat below his shoulders when standing at full height, had the biggest bed in the house. A giant bed in fact, the biggest you could buy. Was she just so used to having to share a bed with his father that while contemplating a new bed for her apartment she forgot to factor in that she would take up all of a quarter of this bed. Maybe subconsciously she was optimistic about her relationship with him and intended on sharing it again one day or could it be she hoped to share it with someone else. William hated seeing her in it anyway. His mother was such a powerful woman, a giant inside the living world and yet she looked so tiny and vulnerable drowning in those sheets inside that big bed alone.

He had finished his homework but was avoiding going down to see her in the kitchen. Instead he had opted to sketch on his tablet. He’d taken to drawing skies at the moment. The reason was obvious. Her. They had met under that grandstand, behind that fence at least twice a week over the last couple of months and for the first time in his life he felt like he belonged to someone and he hadn’t even set eyes on her yet. He couldn’t draw her face but he could draw her inside a sky. This afternoon he had decided she was a night sky, stormy and unpredictable. Perhaps he was seeing something that had not yet been. A glimpse into their future. 

They talked about everything and he was starting to open up to her knowing with certainty that she would not betray his trust. The picture complete he studied his own work with a critics eye and smiled. She called herself Sky she told him because that’s where she always pictured herself being. As if she looked down on these people and the planet gravity stuck them too. She didn’t fit in, she didn’t know how to be a part of it. Life seemed like it would be so much more simple if she could watch it go by sitting on a cloud or a star. How ironic it was that William, the boy who felt more alien than human, had a best friend and soul mate who wanted to live in the sky.

Something was thrown into the sink in the kitchen making a loud crash echo through the house. His mother was mad at him. He knew the second he sat down next to her in the car. She knew their connection was stronger than any normal, human connection between a mother and son. He also knew she thought he was different, that that worried her a lot but he could never bring himself to confirm these things for her. It was difficult for him to describe it to her especially when he knew that confirming her fears for him would only cause her more pain. He did love this woman, this mother of his and often felt bad that she wondered if the same were true of him but she left him and he left them and the parents he knew were gone. He still needed more time with those feelings.

“William” She called.

He rolled his eyes and drew a calming breath preparing himself for her wrath.

“William!” she yelled a little louder

“What?”

“Can you come down here please.” He could tell she was making a conscious effort to remain calm. The throwing of the pots and cutlery were a dead giveaway though. She was mad.

He put his tablet on top of his completed homework shuffling himself off the bed and down the stairs. “What?” he repeated standing in the kitchen door way. She had changed from her work clothes into one of her nicer evening dresses, modest but one of her more dressier dress’s anyway. She was busy fussing with something in the oven when she heard him. Slamming the door shut to turn and face him. He couldn’t help but notice the way she looked at him before she spoke, almost taken back slightly at the sight of him. It was hot in this apartment. The heat was always set far too high, so he hadn’t bothered throwing on a shirt and his track pants hung low on his hips. Adolescence was changing him quickly, his voice was lower, his chin was turning a shade darker with the beginning of a beard and a small thatch of hair had sprouted in the centre of his chest. Her surprise seemed to be in the realisation he was no longer a child, if only she didn’t treat him that way.

William crossed his arms over his defined chest. He knew she saw in him a man she once knew, a man she thought she had lost. The genetic traits he had acquired from her seemed to be all those unseen things, unfortunately for her he seemed to be the perfect physical match of his father. How cruel genetics were to the single mother raising the boy she lost who constantly reminded her of the man she loved.

She turned her eyes away from him to attack a helpless lettuce on the chopping board. “Your teacher called again.”

He puffed out a breath in response.

“You skipped class again.” She paused torturing the salad momentarily to floor him with a glare.

“I did.”

She sighed heavily. “You can’t keep cutting class William.”

He didn’t want to fight about this again. It never went anywhere anyway so he turned away to grab a shirt he left hanging over the end of the couch.

Unfortunately for him she followed. To her credit she was doing a really good job of keeping her voice calm. “Please don’t walk away from me when we are talking about this. This is serious William if you keep this up they may kick you out of school.”

His head and arms popped through the holes of his shirt. “Fine with me.”

She pinched the bridge of her nose with her finger and thumb “William…”

“I’m acing that class anyway. What do they care if I skip a few amphibian vivisections?”

“It’s not a vivisection it’s a dissection.” She corrected.

“Not to me it’s not”

She didn’t know how to answer that.

“The heart of the frog has three chambers, one ventricle and two atria…….” He began

“William..”

“Blood leaves the heart from the ventricle through a single truncus arteriosus which is short and soon branches into two aortic arches which loop left and right and dorsal to the heart to rejoin as a single aorta in the mid dorsal region of the body cavity.” He spouted at her confidently, moving closer to her as if he meant to overpower her with his height along with his words. She only looked up at him with those glassy blue eyes that haunted his dreams as a child.

“No? Perhaps something a little more human then? The human heart sits within a fluid filled cavity called the pericardial cavity. The walls and lining of the pericardial cavity are a special membrane known as the pericardium…..”

She folded her own arms across her chest.

“We both know they aren’t going to kick me out Dana.” He sat down on the couch smugly and flicked the T.V on.

She snatched the remote from him and flicked it back off. “You’re a smart kid William. Everyone knows that but perhaps you could try to be a bit more….”

“Normal”

“Considerate.” She corrected.

He knew what she meant the truth was ringing at him from behind her brow. What she wanted to say but couldn’t. She wanted him to fit in, perhaps if he conformed than she wouldn’t have to worry about him being different and her fears would be relayed. He looked back at the blank T.V screen. ‘I’m sorry I can’t give you what you want.’ He replied to her unspoken thoughts with his own.

She sat next to him and took his hand not knowing that she had actually only heard that message inside her head. “Me too.” She answered.

They sat there for a beat both staring blankly at the empty screen. “Where do you go William?”

“huh?”

“When you cut class, where do you go.” She asked.

“You’d know if I was doing something wrong.” He answered simply, referring to their unspoken communication network.

She smiled softly, conceding. Without knowing how or why she knew he was right. If he was in trouble or doing something wrong she would know about it. So for the sake of her son and their fragile relationship she was willing to let it be.

He felt an uneasiness come over her before she spoke again. “I need to tell you something.”

She didn’t give him the opportunity to protest

“I’m going back to the FBI.”

“OK” he replied a little nervously.

“Your father.” She faltered “Mulder and I have been asked to re-open The X-Files division.”

“Does that mean we can move back to the farm?”

Of all the responses she had imagined he would have to being told this news, that was not one she had planned for.

“No.” she said completely surprised with him “William I said we are working together again that’s all.”

William rolled his eyes and stood from the couch. “Whatever I don’t care what you do anyway.” He went to storm back to the safety of his bedroom.

“William.” She called him back. “Is that what this is about? Is that why you are cutting school and acting this way towards me? If you want to spend more time there, with him, I don’t mind.”

“I don’t want to spend more time with him I just don’t want to be here!” He gestured to the finely furnished apartment and then to his mother who looked as though he had just ripped her heart from her chest. After all he had just described it with perfect anatomical precision she knew he probably had the skills to perform that vivisection on her.

“Ok then.” She choked.

“I didn’t mean…” he actually felt bad. “I mean sometimes I wish I could get away from all this noise. The city is noisy, the people here are busy and complicated. It’s just that our life there was…….”

She looked to the floor, trying hard not to remember what living was to her out there. Their life at that farm was a family one, a mom and Dad and Kid inside a home. William had never been engulfed inside a city before.

“Quiet.” He finished.

A knock at the door interrupted them. He knew who stood behind it with a bottle of wine and goofy smile on his face but she didn’t know he knew that so he staged a protest with a disgusted tone of voice. “Who’s that!”

She looked sheepishly at the door. “It’s Tad.”

William rolled his eyes like she was the one revealing this to him. So that’s why she is dressed up.

“I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to tell you yet, that he was coming for dinner.”

William hated that guy. He hated his TV show, He hated his suits, he hated his fake smile, he hated the way he tried to be his friend when the only thing that seemed to roam through his head in their presence were thoughts of his mother. Unsavoury thoughts about his mother that no child should ever be subjected to. If only he could tell him she thought the opposite of him or that the only reason she was interested in him at all was to find out what his motives were towards Mulder. More importantly if only he could tell Mulder that.

Adults are so stupid. If people said what they were thinking these things would be so much less complicated. She would go back to him, he wouldn’t think she was banging her head against Tad’s headboard and William wouldn’t be witness to this dramatic rom com they called life. Seriously two year olds hosting a tea party could communicate better than these three. It just made him angrier to think about it so he carried on his ascent up the stairs. “I’ll be in my room.”

*************

He felt it the second he stepped onto the stoop outside the school. The minds of the kids surrounding him were set to him and that never happened. They ignored him, he was uninteresting to them all, that is until today. He tucked his head down and pulled his thick scarf higher on his chin hoping he could hide behind it a little. It was getting warmer everyday now and the snow now sat as puddles at his feet. It was probably too hot for that scarf but he needed the extra armor today.

They whispered behind their hands as he passed but their discretion was futile when he could hear what they were thinking. 

“ET phone home” one of them cracked mimicking the Stephen Speilberg classic in perfect ET dialect. The boys at his side came out from behind their hands to laugh along with him.

“We all need tinfoil hats” another one of these boy genius’s called.

He was tempted to tell them that didn’t work but instead picked up the pace so he could find sanctuary inside the school halls. Unfortunately the kids in there were thinking about him too. They all turned from their lockers to stare and point. He pulled his own open to hide behind hoping the two boys moving towards him would get the hint and walk on by. He felt them stop and stand directly behind the locker door instead. He looked down at their feet and silently counted to three before partially closing the locker to face them. 

“Hey Will, Right?”

No-one called him Will, he hated being called that. No one in this school bothered to get to know him well enough to find that out. 

“William.” He corrected

The boys smiled. “We saw your Dad on TV.”

William slammed the locker shut in response.

“Fox Mulder. Is that his real name? He is your Dad right?”

William shrugged.

“Was that your Mom?” he said with a smirk and his silent friend next to him smiled.

William just blinked this time.

“Have you ever seen an Alien Will?”

“William.”

The bell shrieked through the hall and both boys adjusted the back pack straps on their shoulders as they turned to follow their peers inside the class rooms. “ET” the previously silent boy called out to him. “You’re Mom’s hot ET.”

If he could climb into his locker he would but he wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction. Instead he looked out at the grandstand sitting beside the rejuvenated football field. He’d go there and write. It was quiet under there and if he waited long enough and thought about her really hard she would eventually come.

He ran as fast as he could across the field and under the bleachers, hoping that he would get there while everyone was still scurrying to their seats and his flee would go unnoticed by his teachers and fellow students. Breathless he hunkered down in what had become his favourite spot, his butt cheeks had almost imbedded a perfect cushion into the soft dirt. He plugged his ears with his headphones and turned his i-pod to almost full volume. Next to writing this was the only way to drown the world out from around him. It didn’t feel like long before he felt her presence behind the fence. How did she know he was here waiting for her? Their connection just kept growing, it seemed, she was drawn to him simply by the way he thought about her being there. Slowly he pulled the small head phones from his ears. As much as he wanted to talk to her, he was afraid of what he may say today. He hadn’t opened up to anyone in the way that he had opened up to Sky but he had still felt as though he’d held back. Always afraid he’d scare her off but today, the way he felt, the way things were shifting at home there was the distinct possibility he could not restrain himself and tell her everything.

“Hey. What’s up?” She casually said as if he had physically called her to this meeting. Did she sense he needed her too? “William?” She repeated when he didn’t reply. “Are you ok?”

“I hate this school!”

“Well that’s not new.” He heard her settle herself down beside him and pull out her gum. She’d given up on the cigarettes since that day he nearly coughed up a lung.

He pouted at her as if she could see him. He wanted her to be sympathetic, put a bandaid on the owie and make him feel all better. She didn’t even sound interested at the moment. 

“I can hear you’re sulking through this fence William are you going to tell me or do I have to use my psychic powers again?”

William kept pouting

“Ok then” she breathed in deeply just as she had on their first encounter.

William rolled his eyes at her, now she was just making fun of him.

“You’re upset because your Dad was on that stupid TV show.”

“What! How did you know that?” He was genuinely shocked, he absolutely didn’t see that coming.

“I told you. I’m psychic.” Sky replied casually.

“You’re not psychic Sky! And you should be careful what you wish for.” 

“Woah William, you are pissed off and here I thought your Dad was pretty cool actually.”

William looked at the fence as if the look on his face would penetrate the wood. “What?”

“I always wondered, is he your real Dad? Your last names are different.”

William fidgeted with the ipod in his hands “No, Yes. It’s complicated. I was adopted.”

“Oh so he’s your adopted dad.”

“No, he’s my biological dad.”

“But you live with him now?”

“Yes. Well no.”

“I’m sorry William. I’m confused.”

There was quiet for a long time from behind the fence and he was grateful for the space she was giving him to align his thoughts and construct a response. He could feel her concern for him, her compassion towards him and felt her start to drift away as the silence stretched out and she started to question how much he really trusted her.

“I was adopted out when I was a baby. My adopted parents are now dead.” He announced with butterflies fluttering in his stomach. In his mind’s eye he saw her face fall with sadness, the green in her eyes, as he imagined them to be, glassed with tears as she turned to look at him through that fence. It gave him the strength he needed to carry on. “I’m not like most people, I have a long memory, I sense things and I remember parts of being a baby. With my birth mother.” 

She didn’t run away and he could tell she wasn’t scared she was still listening urging him to go on. It was as if she knew that already. He leant his head back against the fence and let himself go. “You know how sometimes you have these really vivid dreams and when you wake up you can only remember bits and pieces. Certain smells or feelings you had while you were there in your dream but there are lots of important things missing? My earliest memories are just like that. My father was gone, she was alone and often I could tell she was scared, for me, for us.”

“Why?” Sky whispered.

William closed his eyes as if that would sharpen his memory. “I don’t know, I can’t see.” He squeezed his eyes really tight. “I remember being scared too sometimes but mostly I just remember her. My Mother. Her hair was red, her eyes were so blue and she used to sing to me, something about a bullfrog. ” he laughed at the feeling that memory invoked that’s what he remembered the most. “She missed him and I reminded her of him. Geez that still hasn’t changed.” He opened his eyes and watched his nervous fingers interlace. “She used to cry a lot.” He sniffed “I don’t remember the day I went to the farm but most of my childhood memories are of the farm house. The sound of creaking wood under heavy work boots, the smell of hay and sunshine and my parents who loved me unconditionally, completely. They weren’t like her, they weren’t scared, they weren’t sad, they never wondered if I was different or dangerous, they just loved me!” He realised his hands had clenched into tight fists and the air around him began to thicken with the threat of rain. He tried to calm himself by drawing deep, measured breaths. The last thing he wanted to do was get angry and scare her away.

“What happened to them?” She asked cautiously.

William hung his head. “There was a fire at the farm house. I was away, I couldn’t get to them in time.”

Sky sensed his anguish and his pain “Its ok William you don’t have to tell me.”

“No I ...” he faltered “No I want to.” He paused to catch his breath again and a few spatters of rain began to fall between the cracks above him. “I was home schooled on the farm, my Mom used to be a secondary school teacher and the nearest public school was so far away. I tried going for a few years but I out grew it very quickly. My Dad used to take me to sports events when he could though and at the time I was away swimming. I hardly ever went away alone, especially overnight but I had qualified for the national ranking and. I just really wanted to go.” He swiped a tear disguised as a rain drop from his cheek. “I knew they were in trouble but no-one would believe me. I was too far away, I couldn’t drive, I couldn’t run fast enough and No one would believe me.” He repeated They thought I was crazy, they thought I was hallucinating, gone mad, no one would pick up the phone and check. They just let them die!” A sob caught in his throat.

“Oh William.”

“Dana was the one who found me. Three days later she found me hiding in the barn.”

“But how?”

“I told you Sky I sense things, I know things about people. My connection to her continued even after she gave me up and just as I knew my parents were in trouble she knew the same was true for me.”

Sky stayed silent this time. He could tell she felt unsure about what he was saying.

“I knew my parents had been murdered. Dana and Mulder knew too but they couldn’t prove anything. It was decided that I was safe if they were there to protect me. Together. How ironic is it then that finding me and my murdered parents was the very thing that tore them apart. Six months later she moved me out here to this concrete hell hole, so she could be a fancy Doctor and he could dig himself deeper into his theories and never ending quest for the truth. If you watched the show then you heard all about it.”

“William, I believed him. I think what your Dad said is very true. I don’t think he is crazy and I definitely don’t think you are either.”

William sob laughed as his tears dried.

“And Tad O’Mally is a Dick!”

He laughed outwardly at that. “Yes, Yes he is.”

 

*************

“As you can see Mr and Mrs. I’m Sorry Ms Scully and Mr Mulder.”

The principal of this school was such a walking cliché with his bald head and thick glasses. William thought as he sat across from his desk. His mother on one side and his father on the other, they both wore expensive suits and serious expressions. If only the principal knew they also had guns on their hips, he’d certainly think twice about mistakenly calling them Mr and Mrs for the third time in this meeting. He wasn’t paying attention to what they were saying anyway, it was much more fun to listen to what was going on inside their heads. Principal Berkenstein wasn’t really worried about his failure to attend classes, he was actually stoked that William’s excellent grades were boosting the schools placement against national standards. He wasn’t going to kick William out but it was necessary for him to make a stand against truancy. Mr Berkenstein did feel threatened by his parent’s appearances though, their attractiveness and smarts was making him feel small and he didn’t like feeling small in this office. After all the power trip was deeply rooted in the reasons why he liked being a high school principal. Not only could he tell off teenagers but also haul their snooty parents in to give them a talking too as well. 

On his left side Mulder was internally rocking out to Tom Petty’s ‘Free fallin’. It had been the last song playing in the car on his way to the meeting and he couldn’t get it out of his head. He only knew the words to the chorus though so his mind was like a record stuck on an endless loop.

If only the other two could hear her thoughts though. She was on fire! This internal monologue about truancy being related to troubled children and how the school had failed to address those issues. There were statistics rolling around in there and historical facts, she never ceased to surprise him about how much she knew about … well everything. A few flash words were thrown out there, things he would blush at if he ever heard her say them out loud. He threw a cautious look in her direction awaiting the steam to start billowing out of her ears but she was as cool as ice. Clearly she was well practiced at meetings such as these from her time at the FBI. William turned back holding his own expression intact and that’s when she said it. No correction, that’s when she thought it – ‘shut up and crawl back into the hole you came from you pencil dicked moron.’

“Mom!” He exclaimed out loud smiling widely at her unspoken words and all three minds in the room drew blank as they looked at him in astonishment. He bit his lip hard, regretting speaking instantly. He’d never called her that before and this was neither the time nor the place. She looked confused and so did Mulder, Principal Berkenstein just looked bored.

Her phone rang in her pocket, saving him just in time. She apologised and left the room to answer it. Mulder turned to talk to him but his words jumbled and slurred. Time seemed to slow as the wave of emotion came flooding under the door his mother stood behind. No one could hear the conversation, neither could he for that matter. He didn’t need to, he felt it, deep inside the pit of his stomach. 

Scully reappeared from behind the door, her voice shaking when she spoke “I ah I have to go.”

William couldn’t face her, he hung his head low the weight of her pain on his back was too heavy to bare. She left without saying another word.

Principal Berkenstein clasped his hands together, frustrated. “Um I hope you are taking this more seriously than your wife Mr Mulder.”

“Shut up!” William snapped at him and his face turned a whole new shade of red. He turned to Mulder whose mouth hung open, unsure of what to make of everything going on around him. “Mulder” William drew his attention to him only “Maggie Scully is dead.”

***************

“I thought you had stood me up William the Writer.”

“Sorry I’m not at school today.” He looked down at his dirty seat and then at his pressed pants. Dana would kill him if he got dirty an hour out from the funeral but it was very awkward half standing under the low roof, his back started to protest instantly. “I can’t stay I just wanted to see you.”

She giggled, actually giggled. He didn’t think he’d heard her do that before. “See me? That’s a little ironic is it not? Considering we have never officially met.”

“Maybe we should.”

She didn’t answer, her nerves snuck under the fence and tingled his fingers. “OK” she muttered.

“Ok” he repeated nervously. He really needed to move his back was screaming in his crouched position but he didn’t want to leave her now. Not when they were so close to finally setting eyes on each other. He saw her shuffle nervously inside his mind. She was worried about what he would think about how she looked. He so badly wanted to tell her he didn’t care.

She went for a change in conversation to settle the butterflies in her stomach. “So how did your meeting go? Did they kick you out? Is that why you aren’t here today?”

He laughed “As if. That old man would never kick me out, I wasn’t worried and neither were Dana and Mulder.”

“So if you’re still in school what’s going on today?”

He adjusted his jacket, starting to sweat now. “A funeral.”

She touched her palm to the fence. “I’m sorry William.”

“Thanks it was my Grandmother. Dana’s mother.”

“Were you close?”

This was not going to be a short conversation and he didn’t want it to be either. He shed the jacket and contemplated his options. It would be easy enough to swap the jacket for another one when he got home, his back was a much harder fix so he lay it down on his spot and took a seat. “I think out of everyone, I am the closest to her since my parents died. I told you before that I remember things from before I went to live with them. Memories as a baby with my Mother.”

“How could I forget?” He heard her take a seat too

“Not really clear memories but feelings, sensations and smells.” He closed his eyes and breathed in deeply through his nose hoping to rekindle the familiar smell of her perfume. “My Grandmother used to look after me a lot when I was a baby. I remember lying on her shoulder, not a physical memory mind you.” He clarified as if that made this whole thing less strange. “More like I remember how it felt to lay my check on her shoulder and the way her hand circled my back until I fell asleep.” His voice dipped into a dreamy tone.

“That’s a real gift William. Remembering things like that.”

If only he could laugh out loud at that. His ‘gift’, as she put it, was equal parts blessing and curse. A long time ago he’d had the sudden realisation that he would never see his mother again and didn’t truly understand why. That kind of feeling never went away. It was etched into his soul like a scar only he could see. “After the fire, when I came back to live with them, my Grandmother was the only one who treated me as though I had never left.” His words caught in his throat. Maggie Scully’s view on the world was so uncomplicated. The advantage she held was that she didn’t know about the many complexities of the Mulder and Scully horror picture show or how he came to be. She had her faith and that seemed to ground her. She never had to seek some external coping mechanism, unlike so many people in this world who take strength and solace from a physical act, thing or being. Maggie had her faith in God and for her that was always enough. When he came back into her life she took him in her arms and thanked God for returning him safely. She asked what he’d been up to as if she meant in the last week instead of his whole life. 

“So you call her Grandmother but you call your mother Dana and your father Mulder…”

“And they call each other by their last names. I know that’s weird right? I share my name with both my biological grandfathers and one of my uncles too. If only that was the weirdest thing about us but really it doesn’t even rank in the top five screwed up things about my family.”

“You go to one of the most prestigious colleagues in the country. You have two homes and two parents whom you spend a whole lot of time with even though they both have important jobs. They showed up at your school to talk to your principal even though they both knew it was just a formality. They drive you to and from school every day and I’m sure that means they have to leave work to do so and I’ve seen what you eat William, I didn’t even know you could buy that kind of food around here. I don’t know, they don’t sound so bad to me.”

“Yeah well you don’t know them, you don’t know anything about me!” He ignited. It was so irrational of him to be mad at her but what she was saying was true and for some reason that made him mad.

“Don’t get mad at me William. You know my father left when I was a baby too. I don’t have a Grandmother because she left too and I don’t have the privilege of remembering what either of them felt like to hold. My mother works two jobs so she can pay for me to go to school only that makes her too tired to give a dam about anything else. The last time my principal called to talk to her about my lack of attendance she rejected the call so she could get more sleep before her night shift. I’m sorry about your Grandmother William but don’t sit there and convince me that your parents hate you because all of the evidence points to the contrary.”

He could hear her packing up to leave, throwing things into her bag angrily. His skin prickled as her hurt hit him like a gust of wind through his hair. He had known in some way or another about these things, her family history and he’d never stopped to consider how his family looked to her in comparison. What frightened him more was that she might actually be right. He stood again hunching awkwardly, trying to get close to her. “Sky wait.” His phone rang in his pocket. “Argh dammit” he pulled it out and read the message across the screen.

“What?”

“It’s Dana, she’s wondering where I am.”

“Wow what a Bitch.” She said sarcastically. 

She was preparing to walk away, he could hear her footsteps retreating, crunching on the dried grass below. “Sky wait.” He pushed his face to the fence. “I want to meet you Sky.” She didn’t answer and her steps were getting quieter. “I’ll find you Sky. I will.” Now he couldn’t hear her at all. He searched his mind but she was gone from there too as if she knew how to shut him out. “Sky!” he yelled at the top of his lungs. “I will find you!”

**************

Scully pushed open the old farm gate as she had a million times before but that had been a thousand years ago it seemed. Her head lights stretched through the darkness and onto the stones that crackled beneath her tyres. She had forgotten how dark it was out here in the country having re-adjusted to the constant buzz of florescence in the city. The porch light was off an indication that she was unexpected. The only light came from the lounge window and with the curtain drawn she could see the flicker of a TV playing behind it. When the engine died she sat looking at that window and for a moment considered turning around. So much had changed in just a few short weeks, for her, for him, for them. Her heart was broken from having to bury her mother just hours ago and she knew there was only one person who could put it back together, but was she ready. This suddenly felt like a bad idea but the thought of facing that sterile apartment and giant bed alone felt worse. Especially when she knew there would be a fire roaring and a coffee brewing on the other side of that door. Her son would be snug in his bed, where he belonged.

Slowly she made her way to the door and knocked tentatively three times. She tucked her cold hands deep into her pockets to warm them as she puffed out a cloud of warm air into the cold night. The look on his face when he opened the door was a mixture of surprise, fear and joy. “Hi” he said not moving to let her in. 

He was freshly showered and shaven and wearing his favourite pair of jeans and a lovely cashmere sweater she hadn’t brought for him which meant he’d been clothes shopping for himself. He smelled like his aftershave and looked like home and suddenly she didn’t trust herself to walk through that door. “I’m sorry I shouldn’t have come. I ah” she pointed awkwardly into the house, her house. “I just wanted to check if he was ok. He barely spoke at the funeral.”

Mulder looked in the direction of his son’s bedroom “Yeah he crashed out. He always sleeps like a baby out here.”

She looked nervously at the floor. The implication clearly was that he barely slept at her apartment.

“Do you want to come and check on him?” He stood aside and gestured with his hand for her to enter. 

She jumped on her knees partly to keep warm but mostly to prepare herself to leave. 

“You’re freezing at least come in and warm up.” He grabbed her elbow and pulled her through the door. “I just made hot chocolate but I can whip you up a coffee for the road if you like.” He shut the door behind her but kept his hand at her elbow.

She looked down at it curiously and as if he noticed he took it away and buried it safely into his own pocket. He felt it too, things had changed between them. Her eyes met his briefly before she looked away shyly. This was crazy, it was him. The very last thing she should be was shy. “I should.” She pointed towards William’s door.

“Of course, of course.” He moved out of her way. 

The fact that he seemed nervous too was of little comfort for her. She brushed passed him and took the short hall way to William’s door. It was closed so quietly she turned the handle and pushed it open just a crack. He was lying face down, arms above his head with the blankets only half covering him. He was a beautiful boy growing into a striking young man. If only he wasn’t so tortured, she would give anything to help him find his place in this world. She heard Mulder rummaging in the kitchen, obviously getting to work on that coffee she wouldn’t end up drinking. William’s back rose and fell rhythmically in time with his breathes, he look deceitfully peaceful here, at her apartment she often found him curled up in the fetal position as if he had fallen asleep trying hard to block something from his mind.

Mulder’s back was suddenly laying against hers, his chin perched at her temple. She leaned a little more into him. Somehow it was easier to do this with her back to him. “You know when he was a baby.” She whispered “I used to check on him like this just to make sure he was still breathing.”

“Hmm”

“And since he’s been back I find myself still doing the same thing sometimes. Silly huh?”

“I don’t think that’s silly at all.” He turned his lips to rest against her hair.

She blinked and a single tear streaked her cheek. Quietly she closed the door until it clicked into its lock and as soon as it did she turned and attached herself to his ribs, her arms holding on tightly, her cheek buried deeply in the middle of his chest.

He hesitated at first, his arms hung uselessly at her sides contemplating whether or not he should return her embrace. When she sobbed he couldn’t help but hold her, his chin landing atop of her silky head. “I’m sorry about your Mom, Scully.”

“I know. Thank you for today, Mulder. I don’t think I could’ve gotten through it without you there.” He had held her hand through the entire service and ushered their sombre son around each family member. He made it seem as if they were a happy little family unit, it gave her hope that perhaps one day they would be again. When William was out of fake smiles he’d brought him home here.

He didn’t answer her instead just rocked and held her. “Come on” he pulled away. “How about that coffee?”

She had no trouble holding his gaze this time. She wanted to make sure he was reading the signal she was sending loud and clear. Her body gravitated towards him, her hands coming to rest at his chest.

“Scully.” He breathed out a protest.

“I don’t want coffee and I don’t want to go.” Her lips brushed up to his but he didn’t return the kiss, instead he pushed her away softly.

“Scully, I just don’t think this is a good idea.”

She ignored his words and tried to step into him again but he stopped her by putting his hands onto her shoulders. “No. I can’t do this.”

“Why?”

He brushed a nervous hand through his hair. “Because William.”

“He’s asleep.”

“Because your Mother.”

“I don’t think she will notice.” She smiled sadly

“You know what I mean. Because…..”

She crossed her arms over her chest and sat back on her heel “Because….”

“I can’t do this, like this. With you! It just doesn’t work.”

Her eyes narrowed suspiciously, he was fumbling. “Try being honest with me Mulder. Just this once.”

He squared his shoulders “Fine. You left me! You left me and you took him with you” He pointed to the closed door his son slept behind. 

“His words popped inside her ears. “I did. But you know what? You didn’t fight very hard to make us stay.” She was breathing hard her arms still held firmly over her chest restricting the expand and relax of her rapid breaths.

It was his turn to narrow his eyes at her. “That’s great Scully. Are you kidding me!? Is that what this is? Some kind of sick loyalty test, to see how much I need you.”

She threw her arms at her sides “No! See you have it all wrong, God don’t you see…” she broke his stare for a moment to gather her breath. “I left so you could see that you didn’t ‘need’ me at all!”

His brows crossed above his nose, now he was just plain confused. She looked hurt and he was the one who was left broken. He was the one that should be in pain. “I don’t understand.”

She gestured with her hands to his nice sweater, his strong arms and proud stare. “Look at you, you don’t need me. It’s just, well, I kind of always hoped that when you came to realise that you didn’t need me.” She looked from his knees to his eyes “You might just want me instead.”

Her words hit him like a giant wave, almost knocking him off his feet. Instead he was propelled forward, plunging at her and wrapping her up inside his arms, crushing his lips to hers.

She was caught off guard at first, surprised but quickly recovered opening her mouth, deepening the kiss and moulding her body to his. He pressed into her further until her back was firmly up against the wall wanting her to feel just how much he wanted her. Luckily his bedroom, their old bedroom was just the next door down. With his hands on her hips and his mouth still biting at hers he led her through the door until she was safely inside. Pushing the door closed with his foot. Their lips parted just enough to allow room for speech. “I do want you.” He said. “Don’t you see? I always will.”

She kissed him softly and smiled with relief “Show me…..” 

**************

“Sometimes I hear words, monologues, random thoughts other times I see colours. I guess it depends on the mind, on the thoughts being projected. When my biological parents were together their thoughts were always blood red. Their love for one another was as red and potent as the blood they constantly drew from each other. It was passion and rage and they were crazy to ignore it.”

He was woken by that red swirling inside his head and making his temples pulse. If only for once his own thoughts and feelings were allowed to occupy his mind, he was doomed to see and feel the world through everyone else’s. Thankfully right now it was just that uniquely red colour he could see and feel because he could hear the springs inside the mattress across the hall jump to that universally familiar rhythm. He threw the pillow over his head so he couldn’t hear. This was messed up. Even for them. Love each other or hate each other just make up your fricken mind. That red, the lust and fury was now washing through his veins at such velocity he thought they may burst and he couldn’t take it anymore. He couldn’t be around it anymore.

***************

When Scully woke it took her a moment to remember where she was, the surroundings equally familiar and unfamiliar. Mulder lay heavily to her right on his stomach sleeping in the exact same position she had seen William in last night, taking the same long, deep breaths. He didn’t even stir when she stroked his back still as naked as she had made him just a few hours ago. But as she continued to trace the lines of his back and marvel at the fact that she was doing it again, an emptiness came over her. Today was the first day she would not be able to call her mother and chat about nothing and everything all at the same time. The day of the funeral had been so busy she hadn’t had the opportunity to simply sit and cry. Now faced with the most important thing to happen to her in a long time she mourned the loss of being able to tell her mother and the tears fell freely onto her pillow. 

It was still dark outside and there was no hint of the familiar sounds of morning birds so sunrise, she figured was still a few hours off. Not wanting to wake and worry Mulder she carefully slid from the bed and pulled on an old colleague sweatshirt he had lying on the floor. The smell of him wrapped around her was enough to stop the tears for the time being but for some reason she was overcome with the urge to gaze upon her sleeping son again. She padded carefully across the rug and through the bedroom door. Williams door was open slightly, which was strange, she was certain she had closed it. Then suddenly she just knew he was gone so didn’t even bother to push it open slowly. She hit it hard letting it swing to fully open. His bed was un made and empty, his shoes no longer sitting at the door. Quickly she stumbled through the house, checking the kitchen, the bathroom even Mulder’s disaster he called an office. She knew it was futile, her gut told her he was no longer in the house but she kept looking any way.

She burst back through the bedroom door, shocked she hadn’t woken Mulder hunting through the house like a mad woman. “Mulder, wake up.” She crawled over the bed and shook him.

He’d been with her long enough to detect the fear in her voice and he sat bolt upright covering his nudity in case armed defenders were tearing through their wall. “What, what, what is it? What’s wrong.” He tried to blink away the dreams that were interrupted behind his eyelids.

“It’s William, he’s gone.”

He pushed his hand over his face and through his hair, relaxing a little back against the head board. “He probably just went for a run.” He offered. When his eyes adjusted to the low lighting he could see her dressing back into her own clothes. The ones she had worn to the funeral yesterday, of course she hadn’t slept here in so long, none of her clothes were here. “Scully.” He cautioned watching her pull the final button through its hole in her blouse and then hunt for her jacket.

“It’s 4.30 in the morning Mulder, he didn’t go out for a run.” She wasn’t looking up at him she was scanning the bedroom, throwing items of clothing around as she went “Where’s my Jacket.” 

Frustrated he pulled himself out of bed and into a pair of nearby sweat pants. “He’s probably in the bathroom.”

“I checked!” she threw his shoes almost taking out his knees in the process. He spotted the jacket on his side of the bed, after all he was the one who had removed it and thrown it there. He picked it up and handed it to her.

She looked at it and paused. “Thank you.” She treated the jacket with a bit more care than she had shown his shoes and clothes and slid it onto her shoulders.

Mulder took a hold of her hand to try and steady her. “He wanders sometimes. Maybe he heard us, maybe he’s sitting out on the porch getting some fresh air.”

She appreciated his offer of comfort but she knew. She just knew inside her bones that he was gone and she needed him to know with the same amount of certainty too. She stepped into him, close enough for him to see the intensity of her stare inside the dull predawn light. “Do you remember the day we found him in that barn, after the fire?”

He nodded, starting to look a little more concerned.

“That morning I told you he was in trouble. I told you we had to find him and you followed me. Something deep inside me felt angry and scared and I just knew he needed me. Do you remember?”

How could he forget? That morning he had arrived home from his run to find her pale and panicking. She was rambling nonsense about William and fire. He had thought she was feverish but something in her eyes told him he had to take her seriously. He’d sat in that car for hours and miles, in silence equally scared and curious. Sure enough they found themselves amongst the rubble that was once a home. Ashes, some still smouldering in the cold dirt and inside the barn a boy he instinctively knew was his. “Of course I do but….”

“I’m telling you Mulder.” She put a hand to her stomach as if to stamper the haemorrhaging wound. “He’s gone.”

*****

Eight hours later they were in their basement office deep in files and coffee. Mulder sat at his desk starring at his computer screen and the multiple windows he had open. He looked up to see Scully pacing a trench through the middle of the office floor. “Scully, maybe you should eat something.”

She didn’t answer, she didn’t even hear him, instead she continued to pace mumbling incoherently to herself, her eyes glazed over and wide. 

“Scully!” He called louder.

“I think I should go to the school.” Her pacing stopped momentarily.

He stood to attempt to settle her, intercepting the path she was trenching and placing his hands on her narrow hips, pulling her nose to his. “We can’t, Scully we’ve been over this. They told us to stay here. She tries to pull away from him but he isn’t willing to ever let her do that again. He grips her tighter and pulls her closer to him. 

“I can’t just sit here!”

“Skinner is making the calls, I’ve been online all day. We’ll find him.” He’s confident they will, his gut instincts are telling him he’s fine. He just needs hers to realign.

She steady’s herself with a shaky palm to the centre of his chest. “I feel sick.”

“I think you need to eat.”

“No I mean I feel nervous sick, it doesn’t make sense to me.” She closes her eyes trying to see him inside her mind’s eye. “I can’t feel him, like before. It’s like he doesn’t want me to find him.”

“Perhaps he doesn’t.” Mulder said bracing himself for her reaction to that.

“What!?” She pointed her chin at him defiantly, ‘how can you say that’ written over her face.

“Just listen to me for a minute Scully.” He adjusted his hands and her hips against his but still refused to let her go. “What if he ran away?” 

“But why..”

“Just think about it Scully for a second. He’s been very withdrawn, never really settling inside this arrangement between us.”

She put her hand to her stomach again, trying to communicate to him how important her instincts were in this situation.

“I’m not questioning you Scully, I’m not and I never will after the way we found him. It’s just that I think if he was truly in trouble.” He was reluctant to talk about kidnapping and conspiracy out loud. “You would know it, he would reach out to you like before. Wouldn’t he? Don’t you think it’s strange he isn’t?”

Her words hitched in her throat. “Mulder what if he’s dead.”

He clasped her jaw in his hand and pulled her forehead to his caressing her cheek bone with his thumb. “Scully. If that were true, I know for certain that we would both know.” He placed his hand on her stomach, assisting her to slow the blood flow.

She sniffed in response. As much as it pained her to admit it she knew he was right.

“What if he heard us last night? I think that instead of thinking about this like Agents Mulder and Scully, we should start thinking about it like Mom and Dad.”

A new found confidence came over her “Ok, you’re right.” She moved out of his embrace to his desk and computer. “The school has to be where we start. He’s been skipping classes, why?”

Mulder followed to lean over her shoulder at the computer following what she was doing on the screen. “I don’t know, he never tells me anything.”

Scully brought up the outline of the school grounds. “Where would he go?” She zoomed outwards so the map got smaller and smaller until the entire outlay of the school was displayed.

Mulder spotted it first. “Well if I was a fifteen year old boy I know where I’d sneak off too.” He pointed to the boundary line labelled ‘St Mary’s Catholic school for girls.’ “How about you Scully?”

She looked up at him over her shoulder with a question mark written on her face.

Mulder smiled down at her “Did you ever play hooky in catholic school Scully? Maybe meet a boy from the neighbouring school under the bleachers?”

“Could it be that simple?” Even as she asked the question she knew he was right.

He shrugged. “Like father like Son Scully.”

She dismissed his innuendo and stood from the desk, gathering her jacket and purse as she did. “They said we couldn’t go to his school.” She was heading for the door. 

He picked up his own jacket and followed “They didn’t say we couldn’t go to ‘that’ school.” He finished for her.

****

William sat nervously on top of her spaceship themed bed spread. It was covered in flying saucers and weird grey alien faces. The irony was not lost on him, he once had a space ship mobile circling above him in his crib. He couldn’t hide here forever, he knew that but right now this was the only place he wanted to be. He could feel their anxiety running through him as if it was his own but he refused to let them in. Not yet anyway.

He looked up at the posters tacked to the walls, unsurprised to be surrounded by images of grunge bands and astronomy. The Greenday poster on the back of the door moved as she opened it and came in carrying a bag of chips and two sodas, tucked under her arms. It amazed him how she looked almost exactly how he pictured she would, although he wasn’t expecting the tongue piercing. Her eyes were sea green, her hair was sandy blonde, shaved a little underneath and smelled like some kind of fruit. It was amazing and made him wonder if all girls hair smelled nice, it wasn’t something he’d thought about before. 

“You’re lucky my mum is at work today but you can’t stay here William.” She took a seat next to him on the bed and put the chips and drinks between them. His phone lit up again beside him, long ago it had been put on silent to mute the many texts and calls from them and many other’s it seemed. She eyed it up and then looked back at him “They’ll be worried”

He tucked it up under her pillow “I’ll call them soon, I promise.” He lied.

She smiled shyly down at the chips opening them and then handing him a soda. “How did you find me William?”

He took a swig from the can and “aaahed” loudly. “I told you I would.”

Sky took a drink herself “I should be more nervous about you being here. You’re a strange one William the writer.”

He finished his soda in one long swallow. “Can I use your bathroom please?”

“Sure second door down the hall on the right.”

When he was gone Sky moved the snacks and her drink to the table beside the bed and looked at the pillow his phone hid underneath. She bit her lip nervous about deciding whether or not it was the right thing to do. Taking one last glance at the door to make sure he wasn’t on his way back she quickly grabbed the phone and scrolled the long list of missed messages until she found the one from ‘Dana’. Carefully she typed in her address with the message. ‘He’s here and safe.’ She could hear him coming as she pressed send and quickly threw the phone back safely underneath the pillow.

He smiled at her as he took his seat back down in front of her. Suddenly very aware that they were sitting comfortably next to each other on her bed and there was no longer snacks safely keeping them separated. She didn’t look nervous at all.

“So William do I look anything like what you expected?”

“Exactly how I expected.” He laughed nervously “How about you? Do I look anything like you expected me to?”

She looked him up and down, as if she was browsing a catalogue. Obviously she liked what she saw. Leaning in just a little closer her voice dropped slightly “Absolutely nothing like what I expected.”

William suddenly felt confused, was that a complement or not? She was leaning in closer and suddenly he realised what she intended on doing. For a guy who could read minds he had not seen this coming. He looked at her mouth and as if she read his mind she laughed a little “Have you ever kissed a girl with a tongue stud William?”

He dropped his head and blushed furiously.

She stopped laughing and dropped her eyes to direct his back to hers. “Have you ever kissed a girl William?”

It was subtle but he shook his head and turned his glance away from her again.

She took his chin and turned his mouth towards hers. “Close your eyes.”

*******

Scully banged hard on the door. When the text had come through they had been literally two doors down the road. Having had no luck at the school they had pulled over to come up with their next plan when the text from Williams phone had them running towards this house. Her feet shuffled nervously, she wasn’t in the mood to be patient. 

“Scully.” Mulder said stepping up beside her.

“Yeah” she banged again harder this time.

“Does that lock look like it’s been tampered with?”

It looked fine to her “Huh?…” Suddenly she caught his meaning. “Yes I think someone has tried to jimmy that lock Mulder.”

He turned the handle and it slipped open easily, someone had forgotten to lock it. “That’s probable cause Scully. There may be an intruder.” He pushed the door to fully open and gestured with an open palm for her to enter. She smiled as she passed happy to be in this familiar comradery with him. It was comforting and worked wonders on settling her nerves. They scanned the bottom floor of the house room by room finally meeting at the bottom of the stair case. Movement from one of the upstairs bedrooms drew both of their attention and without a word exchanged they began to climb the stairs. Instinctively they both knew which door they would find him and together slowly walked towards it. Standing outside Scully paused, clutching her stomach again but this time for a completely different reason. Inside there were butterflies flapping wildly. She was giddy and nervous and didn’t really know why. This feeling wasn’t un familiar it just seemed inappropriate under the circumstances. There were a few times in her life she had felt like this, the most recent one was just last night, the millisecond before Mulder had taken her in his arms and kissed her.

She reached for Mulder’s hand as he went to open the door. “Wait”

He looked at her confused “What is it?”

She felt full of light and happy, free, as if all the burdens that sat upon her shoulders were suddenly lifted. She felt like she did on that fateful New Year’s evening when the ball dropped into the year 2000 and the world didn’t end. “Just give him a minute.” 

*******

A delicious smell greeted him when he entered his house, their house again. Before when they were gone it only smelled of newspaper, bad coffee and loneliness. Now when he came home it smelled of fresh grass and that floral spray thing she put in the lounge to kill the flies. Today it smelled like dinner and his stomach grumbled in response, reminding him he hadn’t eaten all day. He followed it into the kitchen where she stood at the bench gathering plates and utensils.

“Smells good.” He said throwing his files and brief case onto the dinner table. 

Minus a pleasant ‘hello’ she spun around pointing the giant spoon she held at him, like a sword. “Don’t put that there!”

Concerned she would actually use it on him if he didn’t do as he was told he carefully removed them and took them into his office instead. As he came back out again he couldn’t help but watch her move around in this kitchen. He loved seeing her like this, it reminded him of every feel good movie he ever saw and hated until he caught them in a moment like this. He wanted to hold her, greet her properly but she barely looked up at him when the interrogation began.

“Did you file the financials with Skinner?”

“yes.” He slowed his approach

“Did you schedule the meeting with the Agents for tomorrow?”

“Yes” 

She was fussing with something in the oven now. “Did you sort the transport?”

Her voice sounded funny echoing off the inside of the oven. He pocketed his hands and adjusted his sight so he could inspect her bend and then stand more closely. “Yes Scully.”

“And the hotel?” She tentatively pulled a heavy dish from the oven with oversized, bright red oven mits, the same ones she had brought from her apartment all that time ago and dropped it heavily on a wooden board on the bench while simultaneously kicking the oven door shut with her heeled foot.

He was now standing close behind her, very aware she still carried that giant spoon. “aaaah dammit” he faked.

“Mulder!” she spun around to confront him with that spoon back in hand and a glob of red sauce narrowly misses his nice white shirt. “I told you that if you didn’t get that hotel tonight we would end up staying in that cheap little motor camp again.”

“You didn’t seem to mind it the last time we stayed there.” He smiled devilishly reminding her of the night he snuck into her little cabin to keep her warm.

She remembered well and the thought softened her a little. “Yes, well, I’m older now. I need room service and bed sheets that we don’t need to scan for evidence first.”

He laughed and carefully took the spoon from her hand, placing it safely down on the bench behind her. “I booked the hotel.” His voice dropped a little, his mouth moving just a little closer to hers.

“Thank you.” She smiled.

Out of the corner of his eye he noticed a fourth plate sitting there waiting to be filled. “Who’s the extra for Dinner?”

“Sky.” She removed the oven mit from her hands and loosened his tie a little. “William is over there now. Her mother said she would drop them off before work. ”

“So we are alone then?” His arms bracketed her at the bench, pressing her a little further into it.

She had to tilt her head back far to meet his lust filled gaze, “not for long” she teased.

“Come on Scully, I booked you the hotel with the tub.” As if she owed him something.

She stiffened “Excuse me you are also the one dragging me all the way to Nevada tomorrow to talk to some crack…..” 

He interrupted her with a kiss, occupying those protesting lips and tasting the delicious sauce still sitting on her tongue. The kiss wasn’t actually going to go anywhere and they both knew it but they indulged in domestic bliss anyway, after all they had a lot of ground to make up. So preoccupied they didn’t hear William and Sky enter the room.

“Arrrck gross! Aren’t you guys too old for that?” said William pulling sky by the hand into the kitchen.

“Too ‘old’” Mulder mouthed and Scully pouted in response. They unhanded each other not wanting to gross the teenagers out any further. “Hi.” Mulder greeted. “Nice to see you Sky, I hear you will be joining us for dinner.”

Sky was hiding slightly behind William but stepped out to address them properly. Happy family situations always made her a little nervous. “Hello Mr Mulder, Dana.” 

“Hi” Scully smiled then turned to continue dishing out the pasta.

“Just Mulder, please.” Said Mulder moving to the table to set the places and cutlery.

William rolled his eyes “We’ll be in my room.” He dragged Sky by the hand down the hall and she went willingly smiling at Mulder and Scully before she disappeared around the door frame. 

Mulder and Scully passed a look between them, a silent question, ‘how do we feel about our 16 year old having a girl in his room?’ but neither were actually worried enough to speak up. 

Williams arm shot out from the door frame unexpectedly, almost knocking a plate out of Scully’s hand in the process. He didn’t bother to show his full self, just handed her a piece of dog haired card with the schools letter head lining the top and as soon as she had taken it, the hand and presuming the rest of him disappeared back up to his room

“What’s that?” Mulder called setting knives and forks next to place mats.

“His report card.” She replied scanning the columns down the side.

Mulder carried on initially unconcerned. William was currently exceeding expectation at school anyway. Scully’s silence is what he noticed first and then the way she was staring at the card, hand over her mouth “What is it? Scully?”

She didn’t answer him.

“Please don’t tell me he’s skipping classes again?”

“No, No.” She shook her head sounding almost teary but for the smile spread over her face

He rushed to her side eager to see what had her looking so touched. “It’s his best one yet” she said handing it to him.

He quickly scanned the subject line and grade column. A neat line of typed A’s filled the squares, nothing surprised him yet, he hadn’t received a grade lower than an A in his entire education. Then he saw it. Right there at the bottom of the page, ‘pupil’s signature’ was typed with a line for the student to write his name upon and there it was. In his Son’s familiar scroll signed with a fluent flick of the pen…….“William Mulder.”

 

THE END


End file.
